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LECTURE 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION, 



At Montpelier, Vt., Aug. 16, 1849, 



ON 



THE DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES i 



IN RELATION TO 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



i 



BY REV. CHARLES BROOKS, 

OF BOSTON, MASS. 



BOSTON: 

TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. 

1850. 



'^^m: 



LCii 
k 



LECTURE 



ON THE 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES IN RELATION TO PUBLIC 



;, SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES, 



BY REV. CHARLES BROOKS, 
OF BOSTON, MASS. 



The legislature of any State in this Union may- 
enact the following laws : 

Towns having fifty families shall provide one pub- 
lic free school, to be kept six months in each year ; 
towns "having one hundred families, one school for 
one year ; one hundred and fifty families, two schools 
for nine months each; five hundred famihes, two 
schools for one year — and so om Towns may assess 
taxes on all persons and property, for the support of 
public free schools. The selectmen of any town shall 
determine the location of the school-houses. The 
school committee shall procure and examine the 
teachers ; and they shall determine what books may 
be used. Each town shall furnish books to the poor 
gratis. If districts refuse to establish schools, it shall 
1 



MR. Brooks's lecture. 



be the duty of the school committee to go and do it. 
If the town refuses, it shall be fined. Contiguous 
districts may be united, in order to accomplish a fit 
classification of pupils. There shall be made to the 
legislature annual returns from every town, of all 
matters connected with the public schools. Clergy- 
men are invited to take special interest in the schools. 
So much money as any town raises for the support of 
public schools, in such proportion shall said town be 
allowed to draw of the public money for the same 
purpose. All these laws, and others like them, have 
been passed by legislatures ; and they may pass many 
more such, and yet not touch the deepest wants of 
the age. 

To ask if legislatures have the right to enact laws, 
required in the nineteenth century, is like asking if a 
parent has a right to do the best thing he can for his 
children. The only question is, how far should the 
legislative right be exercised? 

The duties of legislatures in relation to common 
schools may be summed up in this general statement; 
they are bound, politically and morally, to bring into 
natural and efficient action all the energies, physical, 
intellectual and moral, which are born in the State, 
or which belong to it ; thus giving by law to every 
child the opportunity of making the most of himself 
All the human faculties should be developed in their 
natural order, proper time, and due proportion. To 
make this plain, let us place before our mind's eye 
a man, whose physical organization is perfectly de- 
veloped, but let us suppose this mature physical or- 
ganism to have no intellect and no conscience ! What 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES. 3 

is he? Just one third of a man. Now, let us suppose 
another person, who, to such physical development 
adds a perfect iniellectiial expansion ; but he has no 
conscience ! What is he? Just two-thirds of a man. 
Lastly, let us suppose a tliird person, who has all the 
physical and all the intellectual powers of the two 
just mentioned, and in addition has a proportionate 
development of his moral faculties ! He exhibits a 
specimen of entire harmony of powers, each in its 
legitimate maturity, and each in pure, symmetrical 
and successful action ! What is he ? A man. A 
whole man. God's idea of a man. 

It is for such human beings that God legislates ; 
and all we ask is, that our civil fathers will follow 
God's example, and give children a chance to unfold 
all the capabilities of their complex constitutions. 
There are materials in God's world for producing 
such a man; a Maximinus in strength, a Bacon in in- 
tellect, and a Howard in benevolence ; and we say, 
that the legislature is bound to act, in union with 
'parents^ in producing such results. And why 7 Be- 
cause the child, by creation, has a right to education ; 
a right which no Christian legislature can legally 
withhold. The State of Indiana, in her recent noble 
vote upon the establishment of free schools, seems to 
recognize this great fact. If the members of a legis- 
lature believe that proper physical training will secure 
health, that proper intellectual training will secure 
prosperity, and that proper moral training will secure 
happiness, is it not their solemn duty to find out how 
such training may be applied to the rising generation? 

The topics of study should be arranged in a gradu- 



MR. Brooks's lecture. 



ally ascending series, corresponding to the gradually 
unfolding powers of the pupil. 

Leaving to better judges the due arrangement of 
subjects, I would suggest, as a substitute for some 
portion of the popular topics, such studies as Physi- 
ology^ so far as the laws of health are concerned ; 
Natural History^ so far as shall enable the youthful 
mind " to look through nature up to nature's God ;" 
ZTseful Arts, so far as they may be needed in after 
life ; Natural Philosophy, so far as to indicate the 
simple forces of the universe ; Sketching, so far as to 
represent a machine, landscape or face ; Music, so 
far as to aid in this part of public worship ; Volun- 
tary Discussions, so far as to teach grammar, conver- 
sation, and the laws of fair debate ; Morals, so far as 
to unfold our duties to ourselves, to others and to 
God. All these studies draw out the child's soul, 
which is education. The legislature should establish 
the following 

Classification of Schools. 1. Primary schools, for 
children from four to eight years of age. 2. Gram- 
mar schools, for those from eight to twelve. 3. High 
schools, for those from twelve to sixteen. 4. Normal 
schools, for the preparation of teachers. 5. Teachers' 
Institutes, for the improvement of those teachers who 
have not been trained in a Normal school. 

Goverjimental Organization. The supervisory 
power should be, — 1. The local school committee, 
with the largest powers which can be trusted to a 
town. 2. County superintendents, to be chosen by 
ballot in the county. 3. Board of Education, com- 
posed of the governor, lieutenant-governor, president 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES, 5 

of the senate, speaker of the house of representatives, 
treasurer of the State, the county superintendents, 
and the secretary of the board. 

Thus constituted, the supervisory power would 
have completeness and efficiency. The county super- 
intendents would be personally acquainted with 
every school in their several jurisdictions, and would 
therefore bring to the Board all the facts which would 
be necessary for profound, practical, and progressive 
legislation. Each town would make its report, and 
the county superintendents would make theirs to the 
Board of Education, and this Board would make its 
report annually to the legislature, to whom all the 
delegated powers must be responsible. The county 
superintendents should teach in every school, and de- 
liver lectures on all school subjects, and also conduct 
examinations. The secretary of the Board should go 
through the State delivering lectures to parents and 
teachers, and spreading all the useful knowledge he 
can gain. He must be Argus-eyed, Briarean-handed. 

A word of explanation about the Normal school. 
It is the first duty of a legislature to secure good 
teachers. The profoundest philosophy of a system of 
public free schools may be summed up in these eight 
words: As is the teacher^ so is the school. The 
schoolmaster is the intellectual and moral missionary 
going forth to preach the glad tidings of knowledge 
and virtue to the youthful population of the land. 
No office this side the sun more honorable ! No office 
this side eternity more important ! How necessary 
that he should be fitted for his work ! That he may 
properly govern his school he should have a soldier's 



MR. Brooks's lecture. 



sternness overlaying a lover's good-will. That he 
may properly teach his pupils, he must have v/ealth 
at will, and will to use his wealth. It is the object 
of Normal schools to confer these powers, and bring 
out these qualifications. ^ 

Without time to explain the details of the system 
now indicated, T would ask. What does the world 
demand from the leading Christian republic in the 
nineteenth century? I answer, it demands a new dis- 
pensation of legislation — a neio idea — a new era. I 
desire to utter, in the capital of this State, and before 
this crowded assembly, my emphatic protest against 
the prevalent maxims of legislation, as they relate to 
public schools ; and I aver, that legislation on these 
highest interests of humanity is narrow and partial, 
and therefore unphilosophic and unchristian. It has 
never yet risen to the just conception of the dignity 
or importance, the power or the sacredness of the 
subject. Take the thirty State legislatures of this 
Union, and what is true of them on this momentous 
subject ? They begin with a false view of human 
nature and human want^; and they end, where error 
and ignorance always end, in defeat and harm. 
There may be exceptions ; but most of them seem to 
have no more apprehension of the extent and fertility 
of a child's mind, or of the relationships of childhood 
to mature life, than they have of the way in which 
the pyramids were built. They legislate well enough 
about hay, beef and fish, calico, hardware and taxes, 
because they understand these ; but when they come 
to legislate upon the human mind and human char- 
acter, poivers iq3o?i lohich all outward prosperity 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES. 7 

depends, then they seem bUnd to the first facts of the 
case. It is this blank ignorance of the paramount 
needs of society of which we have a right to com- 
plain, and we call on all citizens not to select men as 
legislators who can represent only the lowest strata 
of human wants. From examining the records of 
government, we might almost conclude that legisla- 
tures regarded men either as natural law-breakers, or 
fox-iike traffickers, or social shirks, or uncompromis- 
ing office-seekers, or intolerant bigots ; for tlieir chief 
action seems to be to restrain, to limit and to guard. 
Every page of the statute-book frowns with penalties, 
prohibitions, fines and threats. Cannot Christianity 
raise society to a moral self-respect, that shall make 
a higher legislation more efficient? If our republic 
declares to the world, that knowledge and virtue are 
the only sources of safety, improvement, and happi- 
ness, shall legislatures continue to regard man as only 
a stomach or a fist ? While they present motives 
for briiiging out the powers of the se^ and soil, shall 
they offer no motives for bringing out the powers of 
the misid and heart? Will they never recognize the 
luhole nature of man, the divine philosophy of life, 
the sacred affinities of moral truth, the noble aspira- 
tions of youthful genius, and the immortal thirst for 
the " Excelsior " 1 Will they never rise to the Chris- 
tian idea of legislation^ and do as an assembly of 
Saviours would do, if they were called io legislate for 
the utmost good of future generations? 

You reply to all this, and say, that society is not 
ready for such legislative action. And why is it not 
ready ? Because you, and such as you, continue to 
2 



8 MR. EEOOKS'S LECTURE. 

assert that it is not ready ! Change your hackneyed 
phrase, and say, emphatically, that society is ready, 
and how long will it be before a new and blessed era 
shall dawn on the State? Take up the trumpet of 
advice, and blow a blast that drowsiness itself shall 
hear, and in ten years the masses will begin to call 
for Christian legislation upon schools. Legislatures 
then would see that in a most important respect they 
stand ^^ in loco parentis''^ to all the children of the 
commonwealth ; and, therefore, that it is their solemn 
duty to^see that the child has in the school-house 
every thing of education which it will hereafter need 
in the world. They would then see that national 
character is manufactured, by seeing that the elements 
which should compose that character, are doing their 
proper work upon the formative periods of youthful 
development. They would recognize the fact, that 
the laws of a State have much to do with the moral- 
ity of a State ; and that the morality of a State has 
every thing to do with its peace, thrift and happi- 
ness ; and. moreover, that Christianity, enthroned in 
the heart of any people, is the cheapest police that 
any government can maintain. / 

Let us, from to-day, begin and hold up the idea 
of a new era in legislation— God's idea of legisla- 
tion — a recognition of the highest motive-powers of 
man. Then legislatures will urge as well as restrain; 
direct as well as guard ; instruct as well as rule; and 
instead of the thunder tones of threats and penalties, 
they will send forth the sweet music of encourage- 
ment and approbation. 

To indicate a practical beginning only of this new 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES. 9 

era, let me suggest, that a legislature should see that 
seventy-five cents at least is assessed upon each indi- 
vidual of the whole population, for the support of 
public free schools. Property should pay for its pro- 
tection and for the enhancement of its value by legis- 
lation. 

Government, also, should see that the best books 
are used in the schools, and owned by the State, and 
should sell those books at the cost of paper, printing 
and binding. 

Government, moreover, should see, not only that 
purposely-prepared and .competent teachers are pro- 
vided, but that inducements are offered sufficiently 
strong to secure their services through many years. 
For this purpose teachers, who show extraordinary 
merit and remain long in one place, should receive 
some public token of respect and reward. But, more 
than all, should legislatures see that teachers, espe- 
cially female ones, receive compensation adequate to 
their high and arduous labors. Considering the 
amount of bodily toil, mental exhaustion and sacred 
responsibility, there is not a class of laborers on earth 
who are so poorly paid. It is the fashion in some 
towns to pauperize education by ranking it with 
eleemosynary stipends to foundUng hospitals; and 
they seem to think that the more they spend on their 
highways, and the less they spend on their schools, 
so much the better for the town. The legislature 
should see that the highest interestsof the community 
are not thus degraded ; for of all dear things on earth 
the dearest of all is a cheap schoolmaster. 



10 MR. BROOKs's LECTURE. 

Again ; a paternal and Christian legislature should 
pass the law of compulsion, requiring that every child 
shall receive some intellectual and moral culture. In 
the present state of our mixed population, this law is 
called for as our defence. We have in the United 
States more than a million and a half of children, 
between the ages of four and sixteen, who are in no 
school, and who can neither read nor write \ Do you 
ask, what are we going to do with them 7 This is not 
the question. The question is, what are they going 
to do with us 7 We can disarm their animal ferocity 
only by the implantation of moral principle ; and this 
preventive process can be applied, in nineteen cases 
out of twenty, only during the period of youth. Is it 
not the duty of the legislature to see that it is applied ? 
The law for compelling children to attend some school, 
whether their parents will or not, is a law of political 
economy and comprehensive love. The reasons for 
such a law are these : — Society has a right to defend 
itself against crime, against murder, arson, theft, etc. 
Now, I would ask, if society has a right to defend 
itself against crime, whether it has not an equal right 
to defend itself against the cause of crime, which is 
IGNORANCE? Has it a right to defend itself against an 
effect, and no right to defend itself against a cause? 
If you force a young man into prison, because he is a 
thief, we call upon you to force him, while a boy, into 
a school -house, to prevent him becoming a thief. 
" An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'' 
Moreover, every cliild should be instructed, because 
every one should be able to read the constitution and 
laws of his country, and to judge of the candidates 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES. 11 

for public office; but, above all, because every human 
being should be able to read the laws of God, and to 
obey that sacred injunction — '^ search the scriptures 
daily." What apology can a Christian legislature 
make to God or to liberty, for allowing its population 
to grow up in ignorance 1 In the kingdom of Prussia, 
this law of compulsion has been in force ever since 
1819 ; and in that kingdom there is not a human be- 
ing who does not receive education, intellectual and 
moral, sufficient for all the wants of common life. 
The law was violently opposed at first, but so benig- 
laant have been its effects., that now not a family in 
the realm would wish its repeal. It had been in 
operation but fourteen years, when pauperism and 
crime had diminished thirty-eight per cent. At a 
time lijce the present, when legal inquiries have 
traced back adult crime to infantile neglect and puerile 
ignorance, when craft and outrage are round about 
lis, like water round a diving-bell, and when these 
violations of justice and order are increasing in faster 
ratio than population or even wealth — at such a time, 
when legislatures come togetlier and debate for 
months how to pirnish, have they no right to say a 
word Sibout preventio?i ? In the name of humanity I 
ask, if legislatures have a right to hang^ and have no 
fight to educate 7 Ought they not to wake up and 
look sharply around them, to see how the sources of 
an evil torrent may best be dried up, where the 
strongest dam may be thrown across its impetuous 
course, and into what side-channels its blind 
strength may be diverted 1 
2* 



12 MR. Brooks's lecture. 

A law, compelling every parent to see that his chil- 
dren are educated, is demanded by enlightened patri- 
otism and Christian philanthropy. If a parent be so 
weak or wicked as to refuse to his child the daily 
bread of knowledge, let the legislature stand in the 
place of parent to that child, and do for him what his 
nature demands and the public safety requires. To 
enforce the law, let the selectmen of a town be em- 
powered to impose, on a delinquent parent, a fine not 
less than one dollar and not more than five dollars. 
This fine would not need to be imposed in any town 
more than half-a-dozen times, because public senti- 
ment would so heartily approve its benevolent aim, 
that it would silently change all objections, as was 
the case in Prussia. It is my firm conviction, that if 
a proper law should be passed, it would not take 
more than five years to bring it into general popular- 
ity. But to remove all objections to such a law, let 
towns be left free to enforce the law or not. 

Many other laws would be required in the new era 
of Christian legislation ; but I have space to mention 
only one more : — a laio to secure moral instruction to 
every child in the State. Why should not legislatures 
recognize the highest attributes of humanity 7 A 
child's Wjoral nature, by which he loves God and 
man and virtue, is as much a fact in this vast crea- 
tion as is his intellectual, by which he studies mathe- 
matics or in-vents a machine; and moreover, it is as 
capable of culture. Its culture is more important to 
society than that of the intellect, because moral teach- 
ing produces all other teaching, and is reproduced in 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES. 13 

all Others. The moral nature of man is, therefore, to 
be recognized as a fact, a positive fact, an indsetriicti- 
ble fact ; and furthernlore as the fact which under- 
lies all real improvement and all permanent hap- 
piness. A wise Creator has bestowed the sovereignty 
on the moral, and not on the intellectual part of our 
mixed constitution. Human legislation should there- 
fore second the divine; thereby securing to society 
the sovereignty of conscience. 

How can this be done? I answer — by choosing 
for legislators those who are in advance of the public 
in all the great ideas of life, trade and improvement. 
They should be legislators who are, in the highest 
political sense, fathers in the commonwealth ; men 
who, in quiet and mature reflection, have elicited and 
estalished great, yet simple principles; men of fore- 
cast and experience, who can throw fertile and need- 
ed truths into the fountains of public thought without 
dangerously troubling them. Such legislators, who 
represent not only the physical and metaphysical, but 
also the moral attributes and capabihties of their con- 
stituents, would see and feel that the human soul — 
that God-begotten thing sent into this world to act 
and suffer the allotments of humanity — has a right to 
moral expansion through the instrumentalities which 
its Creator has furnished. Such legislators would see 
and feel, that this world is our school-hquse, that 
God is our teacher, and the Bible is our class-book. 
They would see and feel, that education is the natu- 
ral continuation of the process of creation, taking up 
that process just where the Deity left it. They would 
see and feel the propriety of having short portions of 



14 MR. Brooks's lecture. 

the Bible read and explained every morning in the 
school ; of having prayers read from books specially 
prepared for schools ; of havmg moral, questions dis- 
cussed by the pupils, and moral lectures delivered by 
the teacher; and of introducing, as text-books, such 
manuals as " Sullivan's Moral Class-Book," " Way- 
land's Moral Science," " Hall's Morals for Schools," 
and such like. Such legislators would see and feel, 
that to deny to the hungering and thirsting soul of 
childhood the nourishment which these books are 
prepared to give, would be little less than committing 
murder by starvation. Such legislators would not 
interfere with any sectarian prejudices; but, rising 
above them all, would fix on the two central princi- 
ples of the spiritual universe, justice and love, and 
would so embody them in the educational codes of 
the State, as to silence noisy demagogues and intol- 
erant bigots. 

May I say a word to the legislature of Vermont ? 
Your Constitution wisely recognizes the principles 
for which I have been contending. In accordance 
with its spirit, let me ask you, civil fathers, to consi- 
der the tohole nature of man. His physical, intellect- 
ual and moral powers are each dear to God ; let them 
be equally dear to you. Give them all their fair, 
natural chance in your State. If, by partial or penu- 
rious legislation concerning schools, you do every 
thing to sharpen the intellect of youth, and do nothing 
to Christianize the conscience; if you make a giant of 
that intellect and a dwarf of that conscience, do you 
not thereby double the power of doing wrong, and 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES. 15 

proportionably lessen the disposition to do right? We 
invite you to take the most comprehensive views of 
human society, and to make the deepest philosophy of 
human nature the basis of your legislation. Congress, 
when it sat apart a portion of the public lands, in 
every town, as devoted to education, has set you a 
noble example ; and it seems to say to you, that next 
to parents, you are responsible for the intellectual and 
moral culture of the rising generation; and especially 
of those whom the ordinary agencies of society can- 
not reach. We trust you will heed a nation's ex- 
hortation. 

We ask you to render the public schools of your 
State attractive to youth. Furnish them with ac- 
complished teachers, good libraries, and extensive 
apparatus. Where the honey is, there the bees will 
always come. You promise tempting rewards to any 
citizen who shall rear the fairest forest of oaks, or 
raise the largest cattle, or invent the best machine, — 
would it be unworthy of your patriotism to bring 
your approbation to bear, in some form, on the best 
school-teacher, on the fittest class-book, or the wor- 
thiest pupil? Are not mind and morals staples 
worth some patronage? You spend vast sums in 
prisons and penitentiaries, in watchmen and sheriffs, 
will you not provide something which will render 
these useless? If you plant a moral principle in the 
plastic mind of youth, you put there a hundred gov- 
ernors. Are you not bound to make the process, 
which is preventive of crime, so perfect that the cura- 
tive one will not be needed ? 



16 MR. Brooks's lecture. 

Perhaps you reply to all this, and say — '' We are 
afraid of sectarianism." And so are we : but we are 
not so much afraid of any of the prevalent forms of 
Christianity a^s we are of the heathenism which 
threatens us ; we are not half so much afraid of sec- 
tarianism as we are of infidelity, or as we are of the 
blackness and darkness of ignorance. Better eat sour 
bread ttian starve. 

Civil Fathers ! a deepening moral responsibility 
rests on you. You are addressed on every side by 
emphatic voices. Our pilgrim ancestors, from the 
rock of Plymouth, call out to you from the visible 
past, and command you to follow up the two great 
principles of the church and school-house^ which they 
have bequeathed to us in trust. So, too, from the 
invisible future, do coming generations call to you, 
ere they arrive, beseeching you to provide for them 
that instruction, which shall make them equal to all 
the demands of an advanced civilization. Will you 
be deaf to the command of your fattiers, or the prayer 
of your children ? 

I have thus. Gentlemen of the Institute, indicated, 
not as I had wished, but as I am able, the new era in 
legislation, which it seems to me the Christian reli- 
gion demands of the leading republic of the world in 
the nineteenth century. Abler pens, I hope, will 
convert these hints to life and power. God grant that 
our country may so strike that grand key-note, that 
all the republics of our hemisphere, which are just in 
their childhood, and all those in Europe which are 



DUTIES OF LEGISLATURES. 17 

just being born, may joyfully catch the sacred tones, 
and chant together, as in chorus, the song of redemp- 
tion, liberty and love, which is the song of truth, ed- 
ucation and Christianity. 

And now, in bringing this course of lectures to a 
close, it must have been apparent to all, that the need 
oi moi^al culture is more and more felt as indispensa- 
ble to the highest improvement and prosperity of our 
schools. Most happy am I to find the present thus 
telegraphing to the future. Let this Institute lift so 
high the Christian standard, that every legislature in 
the land may read its heavenly motto. 

And now, methinks, I hear the car of the nine- 
teenth century, laden with the improvements in art, 
literature, science and religion, speeding its way to- 
wards us, with its breath of fire. It comes from the 
North ; and it is the duty of this Association to see 
that it stops not until it has reached the extremes! 
verge of our Southern continent. We trust it will 
pass through the capital of every State, to give to 
each legislature the opportunity of making its gene- 
rous contributions. Thus laden, it shall acquire a 
momentum that will crush to atoms every opposing 
power. Shall we not welcome its coming ? Yes ! 
Let us hail it from our inmost hearts, and shout it 
along its way. Hear we not the noise of its wheels? 
Let it come — let it come. God give it speed. Clear 
the track; for the bell rings. 



•',;^'vJS'. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^ | 

030 218 746 



